Week 22

Walking toward Manning Point from Mitchell’s Island I was accompanied by a local woman from the Old Bar region who had reached out to me on Facebook. What I was doing resonated with her and she asked if she could join me. I expressed how she was very welcome to join me but I explained I would be going from Mitchell’s Island to Manning Point the following day, and I had a boat crossing lined up and it was going to be mostly roads. She suggested a backway that she knew was a little bit longer but far nicer. This put me in an interesting dilemma. The “stranger danger” concept I was raised with my whole life, I had found myself often confronted by and navigating internal conflicts with myself, which I’ve had to overcome this whole trip. Offers of accommodation, or spending hours of “alone time” with complete strangers who have reached out to walk with me, I am aware, puts me in quite vulnerable positions, and just hope that it works out OK! I know articulating these thoughts makes it sound quite scary. The reality is though that there are SO many good people in the world that the likelihood of running into a “bad” one is low and the risks just need to be managed by putting safety measures in place that can provide me with options and that I’m not “stuck” anywhere. I agreed for this woman from Old Bar to come along and that we would take her suggested route. She mentioned she had a toy poodle and asked did I mind if it come along. This was a green flag for me and I encouraged her to bring her dog along because I really love animals too. The 2-3 hours we walked together gave us the opportunity to discuss so many things including her own journey with mental ill-health and her experiences of bullying in the workplace and different outlooks on her experiences. She was such an interesting person. We had so many things in common and she is a really big walker herself and has done many large-scale international walks. That very same morning I had wanted to cancel with her. Not because she had done anything wrong or given me any negative vibes, but purely because I was so exhausted that I questioned my own capacity to be very good company on that day! (I’m sure a lot of people can relate to being really tired and not feeling like socialising). I am so glad I did stick to my promise to walk with her because she was such a beautiful woman! I haven’t spoken to her since. It was a fleeting moment in passing between two strangers, that got on really well, and had an incredibly beautiful morning and became a turning point for me that I needed to say “yes” to more opportunities of meeting more people and be a little more vulnerable sometimes because that’s when some of the best moments happen and this walk had been really awesome!

Walking into Mannings Point I had a most peculiar and unexpected thing happen. I have an 80+-year-old neighbour Marg, who is a beautiful salt-of-the-earth woman. (She’s a friend of my grandmother, Shirley May and they were some of about a dozen women, affectionately named the “Early Settlers” from the 1950s in Caves Beach). She’s part of a group of community members that hold their own service on a Sunday and they started putting in a bit of a Bailey prayer into it and collecting donations for my walk. Marg has always been community-minded and involved in surf lifesaving and is a gorgeous, gorgeous woman. When I was living in Caves Beach (which is where we are both from) I would see her once a blue moon if I walked past her place sometimes in her front garden, but she was the last person I expected to see at Manning’s Point! I was walking with the woman I had met that morning and I saw a woman walking towards me with a group of people and I said… “Marg?”….. I noticed her because she had the Caves Beach SLSC jacket on that I recognised instantly. I hadn’t seen friends and family for months and months and here was my neighbour, completely by a chance, at the exact time we had crossed Manning Point, walking with her family that was holidaying together and had gone for a morning walk around the block. It was so bizarre! We had to get a photo together!! I just wanted to cry because she reminded me of home and of all the people that I love and care about and miss. It was an incredible and unexpected moment.

I would have loved to have stayed and spent time with Marg for longer, but it reflects how chaotic my days can sometimes be. I was also trying to time a pre-arranged boat crossing to get me across the Harrington (which was an unswimmable big channel). I said goodbye to the lovely woman I had walked with that morning and then sat waiting for my boat. The familiar anxiety regarding waterways started to creep in…..

Now here’s a thing about when I get bad Anxiety on my walk….. Waterways have always been one of the biggest challenges for me with my hiking. Consider the fact that the Victorian to NSW stretch (which is predominantly the coastal walking that I do) and all of the outlets of water have to go somewhere, and they all lead out to the sea. It doesn’t matter if it’s a creek or a river, there is an outlet pretty much every 20-30-40 km. If I’m unable to swim that I’m stuck, and if it’s isolated and there are no boats or people, well then I’m completely stuck. I then have two options. To either risk it and try and get across somehow on my own, or to backtrack! There have been so many times when I’ve organised with someone for a boat crossing or a kayak or even a boogie board to help me to get across with the weight of my pack and unfortunately, it has fallen through because of various reasons (work, sickness, or change of mind). For them, it’s not a big deal but for me, it’s being stuck on the side of a waterway with no food, no resources, and no one to help. For me, it can be really really really unsettling and so any boat crossing I always get anxiety whenever I feel like I am relying on someone else for my safety and well-being. Some people might think that seems like a weird thing to get stressed about but that’s the world I currently live in. Especially on days when there are a few crossings. If an individual is late or unable to help you with a crossing or in a space where they can only help you at a certain time, it can have a ripple effect. When one goes bad, the timing for the rest of them falls out, and then I can lose an entire day.

Getting back to sitting and waiting for the boat, I have bad anxiety and start the loop of thinking about possible things that could happen and start trying to problem solve it, when a beautiful local named Jock, approached me and started having a chat. He had supported the Captain Australia bloke who fundraised for Cancer Research and did a massive walk from Sydney to Melbourne. Jock was so excited to meet me. He bought me a coffee and donated generously to my fundraiser. I fondly remember thinking to myself, this came at the perfect time! It was the perfect distraction and reminder that there are good people and everything was going to be OK. I was on my own with my big 20kg pack, and I’d been struggling with anxiety for a while over the past week navigating the numerous waterways of the Manning River and torrential flooding. Yet in this half-day, I had walked with the beautiful woman and her dog and had a fabulous conversation, then run into the gorgeous Marg Haddow, and then Jock came along. It was exactly what I needed to keep moving forward. Perfect timing the boat arrived with a friendly “Are you, Bailey?”

I was taken across to Harrington and I stocked up on food at the IGA. I often wonder what people think that I am doing…. My concept of backpackers is that they are a lot cleaner and nice looking. Whereas I have matted hair and smell bad. I’m usually covered in dirt and debris and I’m by myself, so I get a lot of people that look questioningly, but never ask. I was in the Harrington IGA and cafe and everyone was staring at me like I was a different breed of human. Nobody was rude but it was interesting. I then progressed to Crowdy Head.

Crowdy Head was another awesome place because I reached out to a woman who had a holiday home and asked if I could pitch my tent in the backyard. I explained what I was doing, and she checked her books for the little granny flat that she “holiday lets” and it was available, which was amazing! She was going to be away for the weekend but lined up a neighbour to check in on me and contacted me later to see if I wanted to do anything social. (It was one of the last things I wanted to do, but as I had promised myself only that morning I needed to start saying “yes” to more opportunities). I asked her what she had in mind. She told me that the Crowdy Head community was only small (about 50 homes) and she said her neighbour was doing a big baked dinner and wondered if I would like to join them. I told her I had just bought myself a freeze-ready meal from IGA and so absolutely would love to go for a baked dinner which sounded so much better than my satay chicken that looked like fish! She assured me that I wasn’t imposing and gave me the address. She warned me it might be a little chaotic with the son’s toddler but I assured her that chaos was my comfort zone. I went to the house and it is possibly one of the best lamb-baked dinners I’ve had (with the exclusion of my mum’s baked dinner because that is unfair competition. Nobody will ever top Fiona Seamer’s lamb-baked dinner but it was definitely in the running!). This family completely adopted me. They fed me and gave me beer and desserts. The toddler wanted to play and was just feral in general, but the most beautiful kind of feral. The whole family was genuinely so interested in what I was doing and what I had to say, and the journey I was on, and I felt so comfortable. It was a family dynamic, I hadn’t been a part of in so long. I remember finishing my meal and feeling like I had been given so much more than food. It was such a beautiful beautiful experience. I went home to the granny flat and had a bit of a cry because I felt so loved and special. Even though it was from strangers from that family dynamic. I felt recharged and ready to press onward along Crowdy Head Beach (about 20km) and it was stunning.

I saw along this gorgeous strip, the odd 4WD, randomly people walking and I also saw horses. A simply beautiful stretch of coastline from Crowdy Head and heading towards Diamond Head.

Crowdy Bay National Park

I was meeting and staying with a friend of a family friend of ours. She picked me up at Indian Head and she had a nearby property that she took me to for a night.

Staying with her was a massive highlight! Eugine is a stunning, stunning woman! She was so incredibly welcoming and hospitable. I was so spoilt. She got me beautiful food for dinner and champagne. I was so gross by this stage and it was great being spoiled! She has an exquisite farm with the cutest goats and the most beautiful home that has been creatively handcrafted to support her high-needs son. The way that they have adapted their home to meet his needs and create his best quality of life and incorporate natural fittings, was mindblowing. I have seen nothing like it before! They had literally turned their house into a two-story treehouse. There were adult swings, suspended from the ceiling and an almost enchanted forest vibe throughout the whole house. They had taken gum trees from outside and cut, sanded, and lacquered them to create different furnishings and fixtures.

It was simply amazing, the love and care and family dynamic that they have. The attitudes Eugine and her family have around life and gratitude are phenomenal and quite sobering. She helped me more with perspective. I really took a hard look at myself and everything that I have, the things that I stress about, even on this walk, and the things I take for granted. She offered me a different perspective and it wasn’t one that she forced on me or anything. It was just through exposure to such a beautiful environment with people who made the best out of something. It was truly amazing! Their ingenuity and inventiveness were incredible. The skateboards behind wheelchairs etc. it was just incredible stuff. The number of opportunities they have given their son, and how he has made them better people. I choke up just thinking about it and talking about it.

Diamond Head is probably without a doubt one of my favourite places I’ve walked along, on this trip. It is absolutely stunning with vast spans of undisturbed National Park and was actually the first really decent red road that I’ve walked on as a back-track through a National Park.

Through this National Park, there is heaps of wildlife, heaps of snakes, heaps of eagles (all the good things that I enjoy while I’m walking), and striking big mountains right on the lip of the ocean. I really love the contrast of towering mountains against a huge body of sea. For me, that is incredibly, aesthetically pleasing!

The walk from Diamond Head into Bonny Hills is very special because I had the awesome opportunity to meet another very very very special individual named Tera Roma. Tera was the first woman to walk “unassisted” around Australia. She has accomplished over 17,000 km of walking. Her journey and stories are mind-blowing and make you question how she survived to tell them! And… how is she still so inspiringly positive and optimistic? She is truly a pioneer in the hiking game for women! I did a bit of research into people that have completed substantial walks of large portions of Australia before I left and I was so stoked that she reached out to me to let me know that she was staying at her parent’s house in Bonny Hills and offered me accommodation and to have a meal with them. Of course, I was willing and extremely grateful to accept their kind welcome and offer of support and I was also super keen to “pick her brains” for information about the stretches of walking I had ahead of me. She has done so many incredible adventures and has done Cape York on a bicycle and will potentially be doing the same bicycle “thing” at the Cape again in 2023, around the time that I will be there which is really exciting and cool if we get to meet up again. Tera Roma showed me a map of her ventures and highlighted the places that have been incredible, the places where she has had her downfalls and experienced her biggest lessons learned which were exceptionally enlightening and helpful for me.

She met me on the trail and we walked together to her family home at Bonny Hills. We got to chat about all things walking! She made me one of the best vegetarian gnocchi I’ve ever had. She is such an awesome person and she gave me some beautiful and inspiring patches to put on my pack about women in adventure. It was truly, such a precious opportunity to connect with such an incredible individual and I was exceptionally grateful for the beautiful hospitality shown to me by her and her family.

From Bonny Hills, I walked the road for several kilometres to avoid a couple of water outlets. I had been having trouble with my throat and voice for about a week. I had done numerous covid tests because I didn’t want to be taking covid into the homes of people who were graciously offering me support. But by the time I left Bonny Hills after the time spent talking to Eugine and Tera, my voice by this point was so bad that it sounded like I was being strangled when I was talking. You could only hear intermittent gusts of air and with emphasis on certain words here and there, and you could just barely make out what I was saying. I had donned my classic “Hunchback of Notre Dame” figure with my massive backpack along the beach toward Lighthouse Beach and Port Macquarie.

This again was another exciting time for me. Walking up the stretch to Lighthouse Beach was absolutely beautiful. One thing that I have found however with beach walks of lengths of about 20km is that they tend to be exceptionally, mentally challenging because of the relentless stretches of sand with minimal distractions and/or mindful problem-solving required to break it up. I have found that breaking these long stretches up into chunks of time is helpful E.g. I’ll listen to a certain playlist of music or podcast for about an hour, then I’ll plan to call certain people to break up the next hour or I’ll give myself a concept to think about for another hour like “what would I do if I own a billion dollars?” or a mental topic like “what will I do for work when I have finished this walk?” etc.). That’s what I have found good in getting me through the long days on unrelenting strips of sand. As I’m walking along and anxiously approaching Lighthouse Beach, I saw these shapes moving toward me. I couldn’t quite make out what they were at first. I was thinking “are they horses?”… “No, they’re too big to be horses!” “Are they cows?”….. “No, they’re the wrong shape for cows!” “What are they?” As I got closer, I realised it was a line of 7 camels doing camel tours along this beach near Port Macquarie. It was so surreal because it was the last thing I expected while I was walking but it was really really cool. I thought I was in a different world! I love camels! Their eyelashes are amazing and they look like an alien species from another world.

I was very excited about that day when I reached Lighthouse Beach because I was looking forward to seeing my beautiful mother from Newcastle. Mum was meeting me at the beach to join me for a few days in Port Macquarie, for me to do the Lighthouse Beach to Settlement Point stretch whilst receiving some TLC so I could recuperate. (There’s no one quite like my mum to care for me when I am sick!). I had reached another point of physical and mental fatigue and it was really fortunate for mum to join me at that time. She had arranged a lovely unit for us to stay in and have a few days together to rest, relax, sleep, and unwind in dry comfort.

I had a wonderful queen bed to myself, with my own bathroom, and I was able to rest my voice. I was very grateful for that period. We went for a few nice dinners, and I was able to wear her clothes and makeup and use other luxury toiletry items I hadn’t had access to for a very long time.

I had a therapeutic remedial massage that was generously gifted to me by the masseuse when I went to pay her. Mum also bought me a couple of bits of summer clothing for me to carry with me now the season was changing and it cumulatively made me feel more human and less of a “yeti”. It was so nice to feel safe, clean, and loved for a few days. We also had a special catch-up with family friends, Alison Brown, and her mum Marlene on mum’s last day with me. After we checked out of our unit in Port Macquarie, Alison, Marlene, Mum, and I walked together from there to Settlement Point where we stopped for brunch together at a gorgeous cafe, near the barge, before wishing each other goodbye. Settlement Point was my pin drop point where I would continue onwards bound for Crescent Head, but I needed a couple of more days rest, back in Port to nurse my nasty and lingering bout of laryngitis and the accompanying head cold before I was well enough to press on.